Protect the *Star Player ???

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

I have a very true story from my early years as a women's college basketball official. Back in the good old days of AIAW, NAGWS, and blue/white striped shirts, blue pants, shorts, or coulottes, and white shoes, I attended the University of Miami (Florida) and dated a girl on the women's basketball team. Ethics precluded me from officiating UM. I would never accept an assignment to officiate UM at home, but at least four to six times a year I would officiate them on the road, back then a college's AD hired the officials for its home games. And I was hired by the schools even though they knew I was attending UM and my sister was playing golf for UM. More often than not UM would lose and the UM players thought that I was too fair as an official. But I remember one UM game on the road when my girl friend fouled out and I called ALL five fouls on her. Needless to say, she did not talk to me for about three days.

MTD, Sr.